NPR Music - The sound of Venezuelan protest music over the last 30 years

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Over the past month thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets to protest the disputed election of president Nicolás Maduro, while Venezuelan artists like Danny Ocean use music to reflect on this political moment. But Ocean's work is just one data point in a long history of music from Venezuela that embodies the political opinions and emotions of those within the country and the diaspora.On this week's episode, Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre are joined by producer Isabella Gomez Sarmiento to walk through crucial moments in Venezuela's political history over the last 30 years, and the music that soundtracked it.Songs featured in this episode:•Yordano, "Por estas calles"•Carlos Baute, "Yo me quedo en Venezuela"•Canserbero, "Es Épico"•Danny Ocean, "Me Rehúso"•Apache, "Rompiendo el Hielo"Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Taylor Haney, with editorial support from Hazel Cills, Zach Thompson, Tony Cavin and Didi Schanche. Our project manager is Grace Chung. NPR Music's executive producer is Suraya Mohamed. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

From NPR music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Let the Chisembe begin. Anna, there is a lot going on in the news lately with Venezuela. It's very, very emotional. It's very difficult, intent. And of course, music is playing a big role in what's going on right now. Felix, the subject came up a few weeks ago when we played a very emotional track from Venezuelan musician Danny Ocean. I talk about him a lot, and he's a part of a really long story of Latin American.

and Caribbean musicians who use music to vent frustration and even anger at the way their countries have been impacted by politics. This week, we're going to dive a little deeper into Venezuela and some of the music that has reflected that country's intense social and political situation. And to do that, we're bringing on our amazing colleague, Isabel Gomez-Sarviento, who has lived some of that history. Issa, welcome back to Alt-Latino. Thank you guys for having me. Okay, before we get started, why don't you tell us a little bit about, your connection to Venezuela?

So my entire family is from Venezuela. I was not born there, but I live there for the first seven years of my life, and I still consider it very much to be my culture and my home. So what Anna and I are going to do are trying to provide a social and political timeline, and Issa is going to bring us some music that reflects the feelings and sentiments of Venezuelan society during those eras. So in the midst of economic crisis in the 80s and 90s, Hugo Chavez rises to power first through an attempted coup in 92, which he actually went to jail for,

he was then quickly pardoned and ultimately wins the election for president in 98. During those years, between 92 and 98, post-coup and pre-election, people became enamored with the alternative Venezuela he was offering. That's where we're starting our musical timeline. Okay, so the first song that we're going to talk about is called Poristas Galles by my mom's favorite singer, Giordano. This is a song that came out in the early 90s. and it was also the theme song for a very, very popular telenovela by the same name. And both the song and the TV show really highlighted social inequality in Venezuela during this time. It's funny because this isn't really a protest song,

but it's more so a song that deals with the day-to-day reality of Venezuelan society at this time. The telenovela did that as well. And I think at the time it was very unusual, and it still is, like you're saying, Felix, for like a pop song and for a mainstream TV show to not paint everything through rose-colored lenses, but to be very frank about societal problems,

economic inequality, and, you know, tension between different classes in the country. But this frankness, it was so crucial at the time to what ultimately happened with Chavez, right? Like the rehabilitation of his image that took place during the 90s, it was so key that songs like this laid the groundwork for a struggling Venezuela that he could then offer an alternative to. I mean, it was almost like a fantasy what he was presenting for the people. Yeah, I think this song really played a role in sort of exacerbating the feeling that the system wasn't working for most people at the time and that there were people that were ready for a change. And all of this feels pretty consistent. I mean, this is a moment where the people and the political seem to be aligned.

Travis sells a new Venezuela, free of poverty, with an entirely new political system and wins the vote in 98 by 56%. And Travis did follow through on his promise to politically reshue. shaped Venezuela. A new constitution was drafted and approved by voters in 1999. Then in 2000, Chavez is re-elected by a majority of the electorate. But by the mid-2000s, there are shifts. In 2002, there was an attempted coup against the Chavez government. There were clashes between the pro-government and anti-government groups that resulted in people dying. There was a general strike. Lots of stuff going on. What's going on musically at about that time, Issa? So a song that I, and I think a lot of people of my generation really associate with this time period,

is a song that had actually come out years earlier. And it was a song that the artist Carlos Bautes says he didn't really write in a political context. But it's called, Yo Me Kedo in Venezuela. And it has this really pro-Venezuela message. It's not pro-government. It's not anti-government. It's about wanting to stay in the country and wanting to see the country have a brighter future. You know, this is something that we've talked about on this show a lot, Anna,

about how in the midst of turmoil or strifers, difficult things going on in particular countries or cultures, the music is often upbeat. And in this one, it wasn't written for a particular thing in mind, but there's a lot of stuff going on there. It's almost got like a salsa bass to it, which was very, popular in Venezuela at that time. There are acoustic instruments that give it a folkloric film, and there's a chorus, like a community chorus. Lots of stuff going on musically.

And you can feel a shift in the energy of the music here, right? From what we just played, it's still explicit in terms of what it wants from its country, but it's focused on optimism. It's kind of delivering an image of a different lighter Venezuela. It acknowledges the hard parts, but it feels very bright. Yeah, I think it's interesting because this is a time period where, you know, It's nowhere near what we see much later on in terms of people leaving the country, but I think this song sort of resurfaces at this time because following the coup,

following that wave of protest around that time, and the general strike, there start to be inklings of people who think maybe it's a good idea to leave. And this is a song that I think can be applied to multiple political sides, but the message is one of unity and one of saying, we love our country and we're going to state to fight for it. So it definitely is you can see people sort of reaching for that joy and reaching for that happiness as their way to get them. this confusing, chaotic moment in the country's history.

And in a way, they're creating this imaginary Venezuela, an imaginary society, which is very much is what happened in different countries. You know, Celia Cruz was here in the United States. She was not allowed to go back to Cuba, but she's saying about a Cuba that so many people here in the United States dreamed of, an imaginary Cuba, the Cuban of their memories. So this seems to be happening here. But it's also not accidental, Felix, because at this time, there's a consolidation of Chavez's power that's happening and mainstream protest music decreases noticeably.

What also happens is the crackdown on explicit protest music is more extreme. Maybe not extreme in the sense of the government actually getting in and intervening, but in the sense that a lot of this music can't actually get radio play. Right. So in 2007, the government refuses to renew the broadcast license for RCTV, which was the oldest privately on TV channel in Venezuela at the time. by 2013, the last TV channel that was showing oppositional content, anti-government content is sold. So there's a real feeling that it's difficult for people to be critical of the government on TV and on the radio during this time period. In fact, according to news sources on July 31st, 2009, the government actually revoked licenses of 34 radio stations and refused to renew others. And censorship continued to go up. Fast forward to the 2010s and things are becoming more challenging.

for people who have stayed. Public opinion is shifting and it's getting generally more negative towards Chavez. And based on my own listening and conversations I've had with musicians from Venezuela, you can tell the music

is getting more overtly frustrated despite this rise in censorship. There's a major social shift that allows for this to happen. It's the introduction of social media. So at this time, I think one of the most important musicians that we see really rise

in Venezuela, And in Latin America is the rapper Cancerroberro. He's sort of part of an underground scene that starts to really pick up steam. He's working within influences of reggaeton, influences of hip-hop and rock music. And he's really frank with the way he discusses the everyday reality of Venezuela and society. He talks very openly about police violence. He talks about corruption. He talks about violence on the street.

And he himself had suffered tragedies in his life. He had lost his mom. He had lost a half-sibling. And you can really feel that in form his music. He talks about, God, I mean, it's like really gritty, sort of dark, hardcore rap that Cancerbero, and people of that scene are promoting at this time. This is his song, Es Epico, which is released in 2012. Oh, oh, oh, oh, my fault the air.

And in the heart, tu-cun, tu-cun, to-cun. Oh, oh, boy, go to run. Sanger. I know where he's move, I'm going to convert a criminal. I know no criminal. this is a woman I'm going to my brother.

This is very, very powerful and personal music prested because not I'mpa, but the rabia that I feel is camp, it's such that me over-were

but now is necessary to complete with what the heart my plurra. This is very, very powerful and personal music and I'm sure

it had a huge impact on people in Venezuela and outside of Venezuela. But what about the rest of Latin America? How was this song received in other countries

in other cultures? Yeah, so he actually started to gain a lot of popularity throughout Latin America. He begins touring in South America. I think we hear this sort of feeling of nihilism and of a little bit of despair with the state of society that a lot of young people in other countries in South America also relate to at this time. And he starts growing really quickly. At first, Cancerbero is, you know, he has a day job to pay for his studio time to record music at night. And pretty soon, you know, he's getting interviewed on TV stations in other countries.

He's touring internationally. And, you know, the really sad thing about Canterbero, and the reason he's so difficult to talk about is he dies in 2015. At first, his death has ruled a suicide. There are lots of questions, lots of conspiracies around the conditions of his death. It is not solved to everyone's satisfaction. Last year, the case was reopened, and it was deemed a murder. His ex-manager came forward in a confessional video talking about murdering him. But during this time, Cancerberro is sort of, he sort of becomes the poster child,

of hip-hop rebellion, certainly in Venezuela, but I think in all of Latin America, last year, Rolling Stone named him the number one most influential Spanish language rapper. So you can see that even though he's only alive in making music for a very short time, the depth of what he's rapping about really reverberates not just in the country, but throughout the continent. What's really significant to me about his music is that we lose an imaginary Venezuela here. And this is to me like a key part of this story, right? Because there's a divergence in the artistry, in people who stay, some by choice and some not. But overall, it takes on a very different quality and tone than the music that starts to be created by people who leave the country, who become a part of this

diaspora outside of Venezuela. We'll get back to this conversation about Venezuela and music right after this. Okay, so Felix, we just talked about this a couple weeks ago. Danny Ocean, he's part of this diaspora of these young Venezuelan artists who are making. making this music, there's all kinds of them, right? You have Rahuayana who came and played a tiny desk. I caught up with Fofo and he explained to me that Rahuayana was actually born in the context of a political crisis that monopolized all aspects of life in Venezuela. They initially tried to create a space that was free of all these things, but they felt it was actually impossible because it was so inherent to who they are as Venezuelans that the political, the social, their feelings around it, it became a part of the music. And it goes back to conversations I had with members of the band, Los Amigos Invisibles, who were also from Venezuela. And earlier in the span of Alt Latino, we talked to the members of that band and how they initially were playing music to kind of create a space for people to have a safe place to go to.

But then eventually I spoke to him down the road, and there was too much going on, and the band had to reflect what was going on in the country at the time. So they are also part of this sweeping panorama of bands who are using the music to reflect. the very real things that are going on. But the reflection there, it is a little bit different than what we see from an artist like Cancerbero, because Cancerbero, it's deep, it's heavy, it's dark, it's direct. And this music, it's painful, but it's different.

And I think the best example of that is probably in recent years, one of the most popular songs to come out of Venezuela, Me Reuso by Danny Ocean. He actually. dedicates the song in the beginning to all those loves who are forced to be separated. about not wanting to break up with someone that you love, which is obviously something many, many people can relate to. It's obviously why it gets played at clubs around Latin America

and around the world. But this song exists in the context of something pretty tragic that is happening in the country at the same time. The economy has really suffered. There's a lot of scarcity. We have a wave of people leaving Venezuela, looking to start a better life somewhere else.

There are more protests. opposition leader Leopoldo López is jailed. Overall, there's a lot of turmoil happening once again at this time. And this is a song that even though is so personal, it is really grounded in the context of everything that is happening in the country when Danny writes it and when Danny, like so many other people, is forced to leave the country that he calls home. That is what is so powerful about this music that these younger artists start to create

because they're creating from this perspective of always, being on the outside looking in. So instead of writing from the day-to-day experiences of this is what the government looks like, this is what life looks like, they're always writing from this perspective of longing, of not knowing, of desiring to know a lost love like Venezuela. And I think a huge part of that is making it personal

because it's rooted in the feeling. Yeah, I mean, I think musicians at this time are a lot of them are writing from their own personal experiences. They're writing about their own personal heartbreaks. They're writing about their own personal successes. But it's impossible, I think, for a lot of people to not be somewhat informed by what's happening in the society that they're living in. I think as this song becomes more and more popular over time, it kind of becomes an anthem for people not wanting to leave Venezuela in the past behind them. So it kind of takes on this bigger meaning of not just being about a person you don't want to leave behind, but a place and a culture.

And I think that that is sort of the meaning that the audience gives it over time. I think the music being written right now and performed right now has the same intensely strong connection to metaphor that all the best protest music coming out of Latin America, going back to Vika Hara in the 60s and 70s, Ruben Blades, stuff he's been writing since the 70s and 80s. It's always about metaphor. It's never direct. This is wrong. This is wrong. They're telling stories.

And I think that that's where the power of this music is right now. Well, and beyond that, Felix, we talk about this a lot. a lot of times we see feelings around governments or political situations or challenges in a country expressed in Latin America through heartbreak. It's so common that, you know, the government gets framed as the lover who's left them or whatever it might be. And there's an easy way to reduce this, which is to say like, oh, Latinos know how to write about love or whatever it might be. But I think what we're seeing is actually the expression of a collective trauma that we all kind of carry. many of the political situations across Latin America,

they devolved to become so confusing and so painful that it becomes hard to even point fingers at who's responsible or who needs to be called out in this music. And so what takes over is the expression of feeling, the pain, the loss, the confusion that many of these artists go through, being separated from family, you know, being lost to what they need or what they can have. And so heartbreak becomes the way to best express that feeling.

It's the best tool that people have to showcase what's really deeply fundamentally challenging about a situation in a country. Yeah, I think you're exactly right, Anna. And, you know, I recently sat down with Danny Ocean to ask him about this because it is really interesting that you have these songs that seem to carry a big political theme, but on the face of it are like pop songs about love and romance and heartbreak. And, you know, he said that like how he thinks about it is that he's writing open-ended, universal. songs about his personal experiences, but that he thinks that that leaves room for someone in, say, Mexico or someone in Argentina or someone in Spain to take the meaning that they can from that. And he said he almost sees it as like a spiritual experience because he says, you know,

people adapt this to whatever struggle, whatever fight, whatever challenge they're going through. And then it takes on a meaning of its own. And like as an artist, he just has to put it out, you know, in as honest of a way as he can. and then the listener takes it from there. There is a really spiritual element to all of this music, and it really comes to a head for me with a lot of these artists now because they talk about Venezuela once again in these dreamlike terms. It makes me think of the term Venechia,

which Danny Ocean actually named his EP after. Can you explain, Issa, what is Venechia? Where does it come from? Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of a heady concept. But so the term Veneco, Veneca, has been used in a kind of derogatory way towards Venezuelan migrants in other parts of Latin America. And, you know, when we spoke, Danny said that he wanted to sort of reclaim that word. I think a lot of Venezuelan people in the diaspora are reclaiming that word, although it still, you know, can carry a lot of negative connotation. Danny and a lot of other people of that generation are sort of saying like, yeah, this is my reality.

I'm a Venezuelan person who had to leave my country and I'm going to own it, you know. So Venechia, he sort of explained, and a lot of people believe in this idea that it's sort of the imaginary place where the Venezuelan diaspora that has had to leave exists. And it is their idealized version of the country, the food, the music, you know, the sort of golden Venezuela that we like to think once existed and could exist again. I think any immigrant identifies with this sort of like not from here, not from their limbo identity crisis. And what he's done is sort of given that a name and a point. place and a home with a soundtrack that people can sort of get in their feels to, essentially. I think that also really legitimizes Issa some of what is happening here, which is an expression from people outside of the country who do want to speak to and say they have a right to speak to

the pain of what's being experienced in the country. I mean, I spoke with Apache before we got on here. He's a rapper who's a part of the scene living outside of the country, but from Venezuela. and he actually made a lot of his music in the early days with Cancerbero. And he literally said to me, my beloved land lives in me wherever I am, and I'm affected by what happens in my country, regardless of the distance. This is, Rompiento Eliello from Apache.

Precupes for his career, and you know to work, to chambia to his manner, not you're getting swering, We're not a lot of time being a lot of ground today, Issa and Anna. We covered a lot of ground today, Issa and Anna. I'm really going to need to sit back and think about this one. That was a lot.

But really, the whole time I was preparing for this, I mean, there's a lot of intensity of emotion. I kept getting chills listening to this music. I mean, it's so powerful and soulful, and just all of the feelings are out there in the music. Yeah, and, you know, as we're following the news of what's happening in Venezuela after the election, there's more protests, there's more violence. And I think it can be really hard to understand that in this context of music and of how artists are reacting to what's happening in the country now,

but also how they've been doing it for decades, is really important. Isabel Gomez-Armiento is a producer on NPR News's cultural desk. Also, a friend of Alt Latino, Issa, thank you so much for coming in and providing this musical contacts. Thank you both. You have been listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. The woman who helps us keep things moving smoothly is Grace Chung. We had editorial support on this episode from Hazel Sills, and our audio producer is Taylor Haney. Surreal Mohamed is the executive producer of NPR Music.

Special thanks this week for editorial support from Zach Thompson, Tony Kavana, and Didi Skanky. And Keith Jenkins is the VP of Music and V. visuals. I'm Felix Contreras. I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Thank you so much for listening.